You're not toxic

At XX-XY Athletics, we believe men are essential. We made an ad for them.

There is a crisis amongst men and boys.

David Brooks wrote about it in The New York Times back in 2022.

He said:

American girls are 14 percentage points more likely to be “school ready” than boys at age 5, controlling for parental characteristics. By high school, two-thirds of the students in the top 10 percent of the class, ranked by G.P.A., are girls, while roughly two-thirds of the students at the lowest decile are boys. In 2020, at the 16 top American law schools, not a single one of the flagship law reviews had a man as editor in chief. Boys are struggling in the classroom.

Boys are more likely to be disciplined in class. Young women are more likely to graduate from high school and women are earning more college degrees than men.

Men die by suicide at higher rates than women and are more likely to rely on illicit drugs and alcohol.

And while women increasingly participate in the workforce at higher rates, men have steadily dropped out of the labor market, especially as manufacturing jobs have all, for the most part, been shifted overseas.

For the last 20 years men and boys have been told that they are toxic. Gillette made this ad back in 2019, which basically told men and boys they were all assholes. In a real head-scratcher moment, the brand thought this would make men want to buy their razors:

We’ve been telling men and boys that who they are is the problem for two decades. Is it any wonder that 75% of the deaths of despair are men?

Is it any wonder young men are turning to truly toxic influences like Andrew Tate? Someone who tells them they aren’t the problem. Tate is disgusting. A rapist and human trafficker and every horrible thing a man can be. But if young men are desperate for reinforcement and we aren’t providing that in the mainstream, they will find it elsewhere in truly destructive ways.

At XX-XY Athletics we believe that we need strong men in this world and that we need to raise our boys to be strong men. I have 3 boys, 2 are young men already. I’m invested in all of them becoming strong, productive, chivalrous, kind and confident men.

We need to stop telling boys that they are toxic. We need to stop tearing them down to raise women up.

We can lift up both. XX and XY must feel supported and not at the expense of the other.

There’s a void in our culture. And there is an opportunity for brands to speak to men in a positive way. I suspect many will this Father’s Day. But we’re doing it first.

At XX-XY Athletics we believe women are real AND men are essential.

Our latest ad — You’re not toxic — is for hardworking men who are essential to healthy societies. It is for men who raise chivalrous sons and fearless daughters.

And it is for women who recognize that strong men don’t negate or lessen us. They strengthen our culture overall.

Here’s to men. Here’s to XY. Here’s our latest ad: